Hope

The sun went down in flame and smoke,
The cold night passed without alarms,
And when the bitter morning broke
Our men stood to their arms.

But not a foe in front was found
After the long and stubborn fight.
The enemy had left the ground
Where we had lain that night.

In hollows where the sun was lost
Unthawed still lay the shining snow,
And on the rugged ground the frost
In slender spears did grow.

Close to us, where our final rush
Was made at closing in of day,
We saw, amid an awful hush,
The rigid shapes of clay:

Things, which but yesterday had life,
And answered to the trumpet's call,
Remained as victims of the strife,
Clods of the Valley all!

Then, the grim detail marched away
A grave from the hard soil...

    'A cup for hope!' she said,
In springtime ere the bloom was old:
The crimson wine was poor and cold
    By her mouth's richer red.

    'A cup for love!' how low,
How soft the words; and all the while
Her blush was rippling with a smile
    Like summer after snow.

    'A cup for memory!'
Cold cup that one must drain alone:
While autumn winds are up and moan
    Across the barren sea.

    Hope, memory, love:
Hope for fair morn, and love for day,
And memory for the evening grey
    And solitary dove.

Keep for the Young the impassioned smile
Shed from thy countenance, as I see thee stand
High on that chalky cliff of Britain's Isle,
A slender volume grasping in thy hand
(Perchance the pages that relate
The various turns of Crusoe's fate)
Ah, spare the exulting smile,
And drop thy pointing finger bright
As the first flash of beacon light;
But neither veil thy head in shadows dim,
Nor turn thy face away
From One who, in the evening of his day,
To thee would offer no presumptuous hymn!

I

Bold Spirit! who art free to rove
Among the starry courts of Jove,
And oft in splendour dost appear
Embodied to poetic eyes,
While traversing this nether sphere,
Where Mortals call thee Enterprise.
Daughter of Hope! her favourite Child,
Whom...

Mist clogs the sunshine.
Smoky dwarf houses
Hem me round everywhere;
A vague dejection
Weighs down my soul.
Yet, while I languish,
Everywhere countless
Prospects unroll themselves,
And countless beings
Pass countless moods.
Far hence, in Asia,
On the smooth convent-roofs,
On the gilt terraces,
Of holy Lassa,
Bright shines the sun.
Grey time-worn marbles
Hold the pure Muses;
In their cool gallery,
By yellow Tiber,
They still look fair.
Strange unloved uproar
Shrills round their portal;
Yet not on Helicon
Kept they more cloudless
Their noble calm.
Through sun-proof alleys
In a lone, sand-hemm'd
City of Africa,
A blind, led beggar,
Age-bow'd, asks alms.
No bolder robber
Erst abode ambush'd...

I

Thy functions are ethereal,
As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind,
Organ of vision! And a Spirit aerial
Informs the cell of Hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;
Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers for the heart, their slave;
And shrieks, that revel in abuse
Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose
The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair;
Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,
And requiems answered by the pulse that beats
Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

II

The headlong streams and fountains
Serve Thee, invisible Spirit, with untired powers;
Cheering the wakeful tent o...

Up from the spirit-depths ringing,
        Softly your melody swells,
Sweet as a seraphim's singing,
        Tender-toned memory-bells!
                The laughter of childhood,
                The song of the wildwood,
The tinkle of streams through the echoing dell,
                The voice of a mother,
                The shout of a brother.
Up from life's morning melodiously swell.

Up from the spirit-depths ringing
        Richly your melody swells,
Sweet reminiscences bringing,
        Joyous-toned memory-bells! -
                Youth's beautiful bowers,
                Her dew-spangled flowers,
The pictures which Hope of futurity drew, -
                Love's rapturous vision
                Of regions Elysian,
In glowing perspect...

My morn was all dewy rose and pearl,
Peace brimmed the skies, a cool and fragrant air
Caressed my going forth, and everywhere
The radiant webs, by hope and fancy spun,
Stretched shining in the sun.

Then came a noon, hot, breathless, still,--
No wind to visit the dew-thirsty flowers,
Only the dust, the road, the urging hours;
And, pressing on, I never guessed or knew
That day was half-way through.

And when the pomp of purple lit the sky,
And sheaves of golden lances tipped with red
Danced in the west, wondering I gazed, and said,
"Lo, a new morning comes, my hopes to crown!"
Sudden the sun dropped down

Like a great golden ball into the sea,
Which made room, laughing, and the serried rank
Of yellow lances flashed, and, turning, sank
A...

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,
Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.--OVID, Fastorum, Lib. vi.


"O Caesar, we who are about to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.

O ye familiar scenes,--ye groves of pine,
That once were mine and are no longer mine,--
Thou river, widening through the meadows green
To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,--
Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose
Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose
And vanished,--we who are about to die
Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,
And the Imperial Sun that scatters down
His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.

Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear!
We are forgotten; an...

Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.
No faint and hesitating trill,
Such tribute as to winter chill
The lonely redbreast pays!
Clear, loud, and lively is the din,
From social warblers gathering in
Their harvest of sweet lays.

Nor doth the example fail to cheer
Me, conscious that my leaf is sere,
And yellow on the bough:-
Fall, rosy garlands, from my head!
Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed
Around a younger brow!

Yet will I temperately rejoice;
Wide is the range, and free the choice
Of undiscordant themes;
Which, haply, kindred souls may prize
Not less than vernal ecstasies,
An...

Through many-winding valleys far inland,
A maze among the convoluted hills,
Of rocks up-piled, and pines on either hand,
And meadows ribbanded with silver rills,
Faint, mingled-up, composite sweetnesses
Of scented grass and clover, and the blue
Wild-violet hid in muffling moss and fern,
Keen and diverse another breath cleaves through,
Familiar as the taste of tears to me,
As on my lips, insistent, I discern
The salt and bitter kisses of the sea.

The tide sets up the river; mimic fleetnesses
Of little wavelets, fretted by the shells
And shingle of the beach, circle and eddy round,
And smooth themselves perpetually: there dwells
A spirit of peace in their low murmuring noise
Subsiding into quiet, as if life were such
A struggle with inexorable bound,<...

    I

    O wonderful and wingèd flow'r,
    That hoverest in the garden-close,
    Finding in mazes of the rose,
    The beauty of a Summer hour!

    O symbol of Impermanence,
    Thou art a word of Beauty's tongue,
    A word that in her song is sung,
    Appealing to the inner sense!

    Of that great mystic harmony,
    All lovely things are notes and words -
    The trees, the flow'rs, the songful birds,
    The flame-white stars, the surging sea,

    The aureate light of sudden dawn,
    The sunset's crimson afterglow,
    The summer clouds, the dazzling snow,
    The brooks, the moonlight chaste and wan.

    Lacking (who knows?) a cloud, a tree,
    A streamlet's purl, the ocean's roar
    From Nature's multi...

If this importunate heart trouble your peace
With words lighter than air,
Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease;
Crumple the rose in your hair;
And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say,
‘O Hearts of wind-blown flame!
‘O Winds, elder than changing of night and day,
‘That murmuring and longing came,
‘From marble cities loud with tabors of old
‘In dove-gray faery lands;
‘From battle banners fold upon purple fold,
‘Queens wrought with glimmering hands;
‘That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face
‘Above the wandering tide;
‘And lingered in the hidden desolate place,
‘Where the last Phoenix died
‘And wrapped the flames above his holy head;
‘And still murmur and long:
‘O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead
‘In a tumultuou...

Yes; since she knows not need,
Nor walks in blindness,
I may without unkindness
A true thing tell:

Which would be truth, indeed,
Though worse in speaking,
Were her poor footsteps seeking
A pauper's cell.

I judge, then, better far
She now have sorrow,
Than gladness that to-morrow
Might know its knell. -

It may be men there are
Could make of union
A lifelong sweet communion -
A passioned spell;

But I, to save her name
And bring salvation
By altar-affirmation
And bridal bell;

I, by whose rash unshame
These tears come to her:-
My faith would more undo her
Than my farewell!

Chained to me, year by year
My moody madness
Would wither her old gladness
Like famine fell.

When evening shadows fall,
    She hangs her cares away
Like empty garments on the wall
    That hides her from the day;
And while old memories throng,
    And vanished voices call,
She lifts her grateful heart in song
    When evening shadows fall.

Her weary hands forget
    The burdens of the day.
The weight of sorrow and regret
    In music rolls away;
And from the day's dull tomb,
    That holds her in its thrall,
Her soul springs up in lily bloom
    When evening shadows fall.

O weary heart and hand,
    Go bravely to the strife -
No victory is half so grand
    As that which conquers life!
One day shall yet be thine -
    The day that waits for all
Whose prayerful eyes are things divine
    When evening shad...

Oh, for a home of rest!
Time lags alone so slow, so wearily;
Couldst thou but smile on me, I should be blest.
Alas, alas! that never more may be.
Oh, for the sky-lark's wing to soar to thee!

This earth I would forsake
For starry realms whose sky's forever fair;
There, tears are shed not, hearts will cease to ache,
And sorrow's plaintive voice shall never break
The heavenly stillness that is reigning there.

Life's every charm has fled,
The world is all a wilderness to me;
"For thou art numbered with the silent dead."
Oh, how my heart o'er this dark thought has bled!
How I have longed for wings to follow thee!

In visions of the night
With angel smile thou beckon'st me away,
Pointing to worlds where hope is free from blight;
And...

Other harvests there are than those that lie
Glowing and ripe 'neath an autumn sky,
    Awaiting the sickle keen,
Harvests more precious than golden grain,
Waving o'er hillside, valley or plain,
    Than fruits 'mid their leafy screen.

Not alone for the preacher, man of God,
Do those harvests vast enrich the sod,
    For all may the sickle wield;
The first in proud ambition's race,
The last in talent, power or place,
    Will all find work in that field.

Man toiling, lab'ring with fevered strain,
High office or golden prize to gain,
    Rest both weary heart and head,
And think, when thou'lt shudder in death's cold clasp,
How earthly things will elude thy grasp,
    At that harvest work instead!

Lady, with queenly form and brow,

What is a home? A guarded space,
Wherein a few, unfairly blest,
Shall sit together, face to face,
And bask and purr and be at rest?

Where cushioned walls rise up between
Its inmates and the common air,
The common pain, and pad and screen
From blows of fate or winds of care?

Where Art may blossom strong and free,
And Pleasure furl her silken wing,
And every laden moment be
A precious and peculiar thing?

And Past and Future, softly veiled
In hiding mists, shall float and lie
Forgotten half, and unassailed
By either hope or memory,

While the luxurious Present weaves
Her perfumed spells untried, untrue,
Broiders her garments, heaps her sheaves,
All for the pleasure of a few?

Can it be this, the longed-for thing

'Twas on a day of cold and sleet,
A little nomad of the street
With tattered garments, shoeless feet,
    And face with hunger wan,
Great wonder-eyes, though beautiful,
Hedged in by features pinched and dull,
Betraying lines so pitiful
    By sorrow sharply drawn;

Ere yet the service half was o'er,
Approached the great cathedral door
As choir and organ joined to pour
    Their sweetness on the air;
Then, sudden, bold, impelled to glide
With fleetness to the altar's side,
Her trembling form she sought to hide
    Amid the shadows there,

Half fearful lest some worshiper,
Enveloped close in robes of fur,
Had cast a scornful glance at her
    As she had stolen by,
But soon the swelling anthem, fraught
With reverence, her spirit...